Two Decades of JDAI

The Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) started in the 1990s as a five-site demonstration project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation to keep kids out of jail. By 2009, it operated in 110 local jurisdictions in 27 states. This report documents JDAI’s progress both in reforming juvenile detention practices nationwide and contributing to the larger, more comprehensive juvenile justice reform movement.

In This Report, You’ll Learn

Key Takeaway

Decreasing detention through JDAI is making communities safer in the long-term.

Research shows that youth who spend time in custody are less likely to complete high school, less likely to find employment and less likely to be from stable families. They are also more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol and be re-arrested.

Findings & Stats

Taxpayers Pay

Juvenile detention costs taxpayers more than $1 billion per year nationwide.

Detention Defeats

Detained youth are more than three times as likely to be found guilty and jailed as non-detainees.

61% of U.S. youth were in states with at least one JDAI site at the time of this report.

Decreased Detainees

24 JDAI sites had reduced their detention populations by 50% or more by 2009.

JDAI Beginnings

Statements & Quotations

As one chief probation officer said about his detention population, “These are kids we are angry at, not kids we are scared of.

JDAI stands out as an unusually influential systems-change initiative. In 2003, the longtime director of the National Juvenile Detention Association, Earl Dunlap, described JDAI as “the single greatest reform ever undertaken in juvenile justice programming.” Since then, the JDAI reform movement has continued to grow.